Behavioral Health and Wellness (B.S.)
A lot of what鈥檚 cutting edge in health today is dealing with behavioral health鈥攍ifestyle choices. Medical doctors aren鈥檛 trained to tackle that. But Illinois Tech鈥檚 behavioral health and wellness graduates are.
A second-year medical resident can treat 80 percent of people with a heart condition by giving simple guidance: eat better, get more exercise and sleep, and stop smoking. Easy, right? The problem is knowing what to do is much easier than knowing how to do it. Lifestyle habits are engrained from years of subtle abuse to our bodies. In that way, these aren鈥檛 issues for medicine; they鈥檙e issues for psychology.
As a student in the Bachelor of Science in Behavioral Health and Wellness program in the Lewis College of Human Sciences, you will develop your understanding of how lifestyle choices impact health over time, and how to design individualized programs to promote healthy living, most often related to nutrition, exercise, and tobacco and alcohol use. You鈥檒l also become a patient advocate, educating patients on how to steer through the daunting bureaucracy of health care services.
Program Overview
We're interested in how lifestyle choices affect health and wellness. Our students learn to create individualized programs to promote healthy living, most often related to nutrition, exercise, and tobacco and alcohol use. They also learn to be great patient advocates.
Career Opportunities
The Bureau of Labor Statistics projects that jobs in health education and health promotion will grow by 11 percent over the next decade alone. After graduation, you can enter a wide range of health/wellness professions, including:
- Patient education
- Behavioral health coaching
- Assisting psychologists and other health professionals with direct patient care
- Policy analysis
- Advocacy
You will also be prepared to continue on to graduate school in a number of fields.
The behavioral health and wellness degree is interdisciplinary, and combines coursework in psychology, sociology, political science, and nutritional science. You can also customize your program with an elective specialty track in either health psychology, public health, or nutrition. A capstone project will help you integrate and apply the concepts and skills you learned to a real-life situation, preparing you to make an impact your first day on the job.
Students in this program must be admitted to Illinois Tech. Students who are interested in transferring to this program should consult with their academic advisor.